Arco
Menu

Models

4 models

  • Technical line drawing of ANS synthesizer

    ANS synthesizer

    Optically controlled music instrument

    Synthesizer · Russia

    The ANS synthesizer is a photoelectronic musical instrument designed by the Soviet engineer Evgeny Murzin and completed in 1957, named after the composer Alexander Nikolayevich Scriabin. It generates sound from images: marks made on glass plates coated with opaque mastic are read optically and resynthesized as continuous additive tones. A single instrument was built and was famously used by composers such as Edward Artemiev, including for Soviet film scores.

  • Virtual ANS

    Software synthesizer emulating the Russian ANS photoelectronic synthesizer

    Synthesizer · Russia

    Virtual ANS is a software synthesizer developed by Alexander Zolotov (WarmPlace) that recreates the ANS, the photoelectronic synthesizer built in the Soviet Union by engineer Evgeny Murzin and named after the composer Alexander Nikolayevich Scriabin. Like the original instrument, it produces sound from drawn images: the user paints on a vertical spectrogram-style canvas where the horizontal axis is time and the vertical axis is pitch, and the program resynthesizes that picture additively across a large bank of sine-tone oscillators. It runs on Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS, Android, and in a web browser, and is widely used for spectral, drone, and experimental sound design.

  • Technical line drawing of Aelita

    Aelita

    Soviet synthesizer

    Synthesizer · Russia

    The Aelita is an analog synthesizer produced in the Soviet Union during the 1980s. It is valued today mainly by collectors of Soviet-era electronic instruments.

  • Ural

    Soviet and Russian electric guitar produced in 1975―1998 by Ural music factory

    Electric guitar · Russia

    A solid-body electric guitar mass-produced by the Ural musical instrument factory in the Soviet Union from the mid-1970s into the 1990s. Heavy and roughly built, it was for many Soviet musicians the only electric guitar available, and it has since gained cult status for its crude charm.